


To Flourish, to Fight, to Run

by leupagus



Series: Erebor and Weeds [3]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Female Bilbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:02:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leupagus/pseuds/leupagus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin catches her hand in his as she touches the gauze. “<i>You</i> still call me Thorin,” he says, softly.</p>
<p>“Well,” she says, trying as hard as she can to sound businesslike, “That’s because you’re not my king.”</p>
<p>“You’re under my mountain,” Thorin points out.</p>
<p>Bilbo scowls, and shakes his hand loose. “I can’t believe you’re arguing not five seconds after you’ve woken up,” she says, pulling the gauze free. It’s mostly healed, an ugly scar that will be there for the rest of his life. “Though perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [screamlet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/gifts).



> Written for screamlet's Yuleterrible exchange; her request was a story about Dwalin and Bilbo being bros. The prompt got a little bit away from me, but there's plenty of brodom, I promise.

“You’re absolute shit with that sword, you know.”

Bilbo looks up from the bandage she’s wrapping around Thorin’s arm, blinking into the darkness. The halls of Erebor are lit with fine torches and cunning use of mirrored walls and ceilings, but in the chambers there is only candlelight and the strange colored lamps of the dwarves; Bilbo has taken to squinting so much that she feels a permanent wrinkle between her brows beginning to take shape.

“Beg pardon?” There are so many reasons to think she misheard: it’s past midnight (or the dwarves’ idea of midnight, which doesn’t quite match up with the world under the sky), she’s changing the bandages of the snow-pale King Under the Mountain (who hasn’t yet woken up from whatever spell Gandalf put on him to heal his terrible wounds), and the speaker seems to be Dwalin (who’s hardly spoken five words to her since the battle).

“You,” Dwalin repeats, “Shit. With sword.” He comes closer from the doorway, where he’s been keeping watch over Thorin since he was first carted in two days ago; Bilbo suspects he hasn’t slept in all that time.

“So it seems I didn’t mishear,” Bilbo sighs, finishing up the bandaging. “It’s a bit late to start training me up, isn’t it? The quest is over.”

“There’s still your return journey,” Dwalin points out. “You’ll not have thirteen warriors and a wizard to defend you from every danger that comes your way.”

Bilbo ignores the twinge in her stomach at the thought of leaving; instead she says, “Are you honestly calling Ori a warrior?”

Dwalin just folds his arms over his chest. “We’ll start with your stance.”

“No, we won’t,” Bilbo says.

“Yes, we  _will_.”

“In case it’s escaped your notice, we’re both rather preoccupied with other things to be doing at the moment.”

“He’ll wake up soon enough, lass,” says Dwalin, pitiless, “And in the meantime, he’s slept through worse than this.”

“Worse than — I am absolutely  _not_  learning how to swordfight in a sickroom.”

“He’s not sick,” he points out.

“Dwalin—“ But before she can start a comprehensive list of all the reasons she’s not going to do this, Dwalin’s swung his axe from off his shoulder, spinning it in a neat circle until it comes to a stop not an inch from Thorin’s nose.

“He’s not sick, but he’s helpless. And if someone came in here, attacked the King? Who do you think I’d protect?” He tilts the axe, catching candlelight on the side of it. “You? Or him?”

There’s no possible response to that.

“You can hire fighters to shield you on your way home to the Shire,” Dwalin continues, putting his axe away, “But you’ll one day have someone who needs shielding, who’s even more helpless than you. If that’s possible.”

Bilbo glares at him. “Fine. Once he wakes up—“

“Now,” Dwalin says. “Draw your weapon.”

“I don’t have a weapon,” Bilbo protests.

“First lesson, then,” Dwalin says. “ _Everything’s_  a weapon.”

*

There are more lessons. Dwalin is just as tyrannical a teacher as Bilbo suspected, dragging her out of her cot when she’s hardly had a moment’s sleep, piling musty-smelling books that he’s fetched out of some musty-smelling library about footwork technique and throwing acorns at her head for her to deflect.

“Someone’s going to attack me with acorns?” she asks, panting and sweaty and gaze flicking back to Thorin’s still form - she of course lost the battle over whether they’d train in the royal chambers or somewhere more sensible. There are a half-dozen acorns on Thorin’s blanket and Bilbo half-wonders if she hits one onto his face whether he’ll wake up.

“Someone will be  _firing arrows_  at you, lassie,” Dwalin growls, pelting her with another one. It hits her on the cheek.

She goes to bed more exhausted than she had been on the road all those long months, only to wake up with the covers tangled at her feet — she’d been practicing footwork in her sleep. It’s something to be oddly grateful for, she supposes; though she’s in Thorin’s room all day either tending him or suffering through lessons, she finds herself too tired to worry at his long sleep.

Anyway, her complaints to the rest of the Company go pitilessly ignored. “Did the same to us when we were yay high,” Kíli says, shifting restlessly in his bed. He’s got a bandage over one eye — Óin managed to save it, but it’s doubtful he’ll ever see well out of it again — and his broken leg is keeping him from running about too much, but he’s as cheerful as ever. “Has he tied your sword arm behind your back and made you fight with your shield arm yet?”

“I’ve only been doing this a week!” Bilbo protests.

Kíli just laughs. “He’s going easy on you, then.”

It’s not all horrible; Dwalin has always been kinder to her than she suspects he’s inclined to be, and he takes time to explain each of the mad exercises he puts her through. Moreover, he doesn’t seem to expect her to learn how to carry a fully-laden dwarf over rough ground while fighting off an orc pack, as she’s seen him do; his technique for her seems to be to strike fast and get out of the way, rather than punch things until they stop moving or their head comes off.

“There’s three ways to stand when you’re facing someone down,” Dwalin says, unsheathing his sword and demonstrating. “The flourish is when you want to threaten — get someone thinking that you’re not worth the effort. In your case, this’ll be useless, but you have to learn it anyway.”

“Thank you for that,” Bilbo huffs, but she copies the movement as best she’s able.

“The second is the fight,” he continues, and she can see a little smile on his face, the complete muffle-head. “This is when you know you’re going to fight him no matter what, and you have to have your form ready for whatever he throws at you. Be it an arrow—“ and he flicks an acorn at her with his left hand, nodding in approval when she bats it away, “Or a blade—“ and this time he sweeps his sword down and across, and she moves to the block position without thinking, stopping the arc of the blade. Once again she gets a small nod.

“And the third?” she asks.

“The third is the run,” Dwalin starts.

Bilbo is unable to resist. “Do you even know that one?”

“Shut up when your teacher’s imparting wisdom,” Dwalin says, and moves into a stance that seems identical to the fight. “Aye, it looks the same, doesn’t it? It ought to — it needs to. You never want your enemy to know you’re thinking of running.”

“If they’re facing off against me, no doubt they’ll always think that,” Bilbo says.

“You’re stronger than you think, and braver,” says Dwalin, with that sudden way he has. “If they’re facing off against you and they think that, more fools they.”

The very idea of asking Dwalin if he just complimented her makes her skin crawl, so Bilbo merely says, “So what’s the difference?”

“The difference is where your weight is,” Dwalin says, and the lesson continues from there.

*

Thorin does end up waking up because of an acorn to the face, much to Bilbo’s secret delight. It’s been almost three weeks and Bilbo’s given up all pretense of propriety, dragging her cot into the chambers and setting up the little hobbit-sized armchair Bofur had found for her in front of the fire. Amongst hobbits the only excuse for this would be if Thorin were about to give birth and the midwife needed to be at hand, but dwarves, it seems, are less easily scandalized — though possibly they shouldn’t be.

Tonight Dwalin is once again pelting her; he’s stolen Ori’s slingshot and now the acorns sting if they hit their target — which they do, because an acorn from a slingshot is considerably harder to block. When she points this out, Dwalin just shrugs. “How much harder will an arrow be, then?”

“You’re  _impossible_ ,” she grumps, and actually hits one — it goes sailing through the air and smacks Thorin right in the face. Bilbo almost drops her sword in horror.

Of course Dwalin, being horrible, just laughs and slaps his knee. “That’ll wake him up, sure enough,” he crows.

But there is movement from the bed — Thorin shifts, and blinks, and frowns up at the ceiling. “Ow,” he says, contemplatively.

This time Bilbo does drop her sword, rushing to the bed. “Thorin? Can you hear me?”

“Less well than I can hear all that clanging,” he replies, as charming as ever. “What are the two of you doing?”

“Storing up for winter,” Dwalin rumbles, coming to stand at Thorin’s feet. He holds out Bilbo’s sword. “Dropped this.”

“Never mind that,” Bilbo says. “How do you feel, Thorin?”

“Like I want to know what the two of you were doing,” Thorin replies. He frowns again, plucks the offending acorn off the bedcovers. “And now I do,” he sighs.

“It was Dwalin’s idea,” Bilbo assures him, pulling the blanket back to examine the injury — or trying to, because Thorin grabs at the blanket at the first tug.

“And now I want to know what  _you’re_  doing,” he hisses.

“I’m looking at the great gash in your belly, you overgrown  _child_ ,” she tells him. “As I have been for the last three weeks.”

“You’ve been my nursemaid?” Thorin makes a face.

“The famous gratitude of the dwarves,” Bilbo mutters, and yanks the blanket free of his clutching fingers. “Dwalin, please inform your king that I’m more than capable of changing bandages and bedsheets.”

“Aye, she could open a business,” Dwalin says, solemn. “I’ll go and fetch Óin and Balin and Fíli — they’ll want to pester you with questions of their own, Your Majesty.”

“Don’t call me that,” Thorin says, but Dwalin’s already out the door.

“Why shouldn’t he call you that?”

“I’ve known him since I was born,” Thorin grumbles. “He never called me anything but ‘Thorin,’ even when I was the prince.”

“Well, you’re king now, so best get used to it,” she tells him, finally undoing the knot that holds the binding on Thorin’s waist. His skin is warmer than it was — Gandalf’s spell, whatever else it had done, had made Thorin cool to the touch, and there had been nights where all Bilbo could do was watch the steady rise and fall of Thorin’s chest, holding his chilled hand in hers and telling herself with each breath  _he lives, he lives, he lives_.

But now that warm skin feels like danger of another kind, because Thorin catches her hand in his as she touches the gauze. “ _You_  still call me Thorin,” he says, softly.

“Well,” she says, trying as hard as she can to sound businesslike, “That’s because you’re not my king.”

“You’re under my mountain,” Thorin points out.

Bilbo scowls, and shakes his hand loose. “I can’t believe you’re arguing not five seconds after you’ve woken up,” she says, pulling the gauze free. It’s mostly healed, an ugly scar that will be there for the rest of his life. “Though perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” he says, and she glances up at his face to see a smile, one she hasn’t ever seen before — and she’s been collecting specimens for a long time now, the ones that warmed her and the ones that frightened her, but this one is different. “We should talk,” he starts.

And is confusticatingly interrupted by the door slamming open, Fíli dragging his brother in with a great deal of shouting and cheering. “Uncle!” Kíli yelps, hopping toward the bed. “You look absolutely horrible.”

“See, two more people who don’t call you ‘Your Majesty,’” Bilbo points out, standing up to bring her armchair over. 

Kíli crashes into it and wraps his arm, companionable, around Bilbo’s waist, tugging her onto the arm of the chair. “And thank heavens for that, else he’d have a head swelled to half the size of Erebor and we’d never get him out of this room,” he says, putting his foot up on Thorin’s bed.

*

Bilbo half-expects the swordfighting lessons to stop after that — Thorin gets stronger by the day, and is limping about shouting at people within a week — but Dwalin still puts her through her paces. They find an old training room and Bilbo learns about defending herself from an axe versus a knife versus a scimitar, and she thinks that perhaps it’s affection that Dwalin is trying to impart, a way to keep her alive on the long journey home that she’ll have to take soon.

*

Fíli finds her on the morning of the coronation, staggering back to her rooms after yet another practice session. “You’d best not be going looking like  _that_ ,” he says cheerfully.

“Dwalin has been particularly sadistic today,” she sighs, pushing the door open. She’s back in her own chambers, now that Thorin is awake, though she hasn’t yet had a chance to get her armchair back. For some reason she’s been stuck in the Royal Wing alongside Kíli and Fíli, but she’s hardly of a mind to ask questions; the chambers come with a bathroom, and one of the first things Fíli put right as Regent was the plumbing. 

“He’s still teaching you?” Fíli asks, coming in without asking permission — but then, the entire Company has lived in each other’s pockets for so long that Bilbo isn’t more than distantly aware of the social niceties.

“Much to my dismay,” she replies, then notices the box in Fíli’s hands. “What’s that?”

“It’s for you,” Fíli says, “Though I’ll have to insist you get yourself cleaned up before I give it to you.”

Bilbo scowls, but goes to the closet where her coronation dress — a rather pretty thing, designed by Dori in just a few days — is hanging up. “I suppose it’s too much to ask you to come back when I’m ready,” she says.

“But you’ve got ‘History of the War Axe,’” Fíli protests, taking it off her shelf and waving it at her. “I’ve been meaning to read it.”

“The line of Durin is utterly impossible,” she mutters, and goes to bathe and change.

When she comes out, Fíli whistles low — a revolting habit he no doubt picked up from Bard. “You clean up nicely, burglar,” he says. “Now, sit down and give me your comb.”

“What?” she says.

He opens the box; inside are a half-dozen bits of jewelry, beautiful things in silver and jade and lapis lazuli. “You’re part of the Company,” he says, “It’s only right that everyone know who you are.”

“You’ll put them in my hair? Like you do?” She can’t help it — she reaches out to touch one of the beads, carved with letters she cannot read. “Won’t I look ridiculous?”

“Here’s hoping,” Fíli says, and makes a grabbing motion. “Your comb, milady.”

“Try not to pull all my hair out,” Bilbo huffs, but Fíli is surprisingly delicate, threading the beads through each strand in turn.

“You know, I thought we’d celebrate the coronation with a wedding, as well,” Fíli says, when he’s halfway done and Bilbo can’t risk moving to stare at him.

“You — did?” she asks, cursing at herself when her voice breaks just a bit.

Fíli shrugs. "There was a girl, back in the Blue Mountains. I asked her if we won Erebor back, if she would come here. She didn’t promise me, but I thought — perhaps. But now I’ve gotten word that she’s married someone in Ered Luin.”

“I’m sorry, Fíli,” Bilbo says. “But surely now that you’re here in Erebor, you might meet someone else. Hobbits have a saying, there’s plenty other food in the pantry.”

“Not in yours, I’d imagine,” Fíli laughs. “So hobbits marry more than once?”

“Sometimes, if a husband or a wife dies, or if two hobbits divorce, and a hobbit finds someone else,” says Bilbo, wondering at this curiosity. “Though mostly a marriage is just an excuse for a party, after the baby begins to show. We don't see much need to get married otherwise.”

“Bilbo Baggins, by my word,” says Fíli, sounding delightfully scandalized. “You marry  _after_?”

“Yes, men and elves find it strange too,” Bilbo says, “Though I can’t think why. It’s far more sensible — imagine getting stuck with someone who’s no good? Besides, amongst hobbits you can tell if there’s something more than just a passing fancy — if we meet someone we truly care for, in the summer time we… well,” she clears her throat, “In the Shire we call it the feasting-time.”

“And you feast for a good while together, is that it?” Fíli teases, and Bilbo risks the braid to flail at him, hitting his shoulder. “How long?” he asks, undeterred.

“About a week,” she mumbles, “With occasional breaks for food.”

“Why, Miss Baggins, I didn’t think you were talking about anything  _aside_  from food this whole time,” he says, but there’s a serious pause before he says, “Dwarves aren’t like that. We love only once, and we don’t love generously. It’s called âzyungel; if we suffer through it, we don’t go through it again.”

“You make it sound like chicken pox,” Bilbo says. “Is love really so awful, for dwarves?”

“Only with the losing of it,” Fíli says. “My mother went half-mad for a while, when my father died. Balin lost his âzyungâl, too — he never talks of it, but he wears his hair unbraided, to show there is no one to care for him now.”

“That  _does_  sound awful.”

“But when the âzyungâl is found, and if he or she returns your love — they say the fiercest and most fearless warriors are married, for they have lived better lives. It’s a great thing, the love of a dwarf.” He finished the braid. “Now you’re fit for the coronation,” he says briskly.

Bilbo looks at her reflection in the mirror above the mantlepiece. “I expect I look ridiculous to a dwarf,” she says. “And no doubt Thorin will laugh at me a good deal. But thank you, Fíli.”

“Thank my uncle,” Fíli says. “He made them.”

“He made them.” Bilbo can’t think of anything else to say.

“It’s his coronation,” Fíli tells her, shutting the box. “And he wants everyone to know who you are.”

*

The coronation is full of splendor and speeches and Bilbo doesn’t understand a word of it; only that she’s at Thorin’s left hand the entire time, with every single dwarf under the mountain staring at her. The entire ceremony is conducted in khuzdul, which sounds like so much throat-gargling to her and she’s not allowed to learn it anyway, but Thorin gestures at her several times and there’s cheering, so she supposes that’s good.

It is only much later, after the coronation — during the cacophonous party — that Bilbo manages to find a moment to herself, on a balcony overlooking the great gates. From within are still sounds of cheering and laughter; apparently dwarvish feasts of this kind can go on for days, and goodness knows Erebor’s had little enough to celebrate in almost two centuries. 

Still, she takes a deep breath in the chilly night air and finds herself squinting under the brightness of a full moon. Erebor’s dim hallways are changing her eyes; Erebor itself is getting under her skin. She should leave soon.

There’s the sound of boots on the stairs, and a moment later Dwalin appears.  “Good trick for if someone attacks you here,” he says, holding two mugs of ale. “Just step to one side as they rush you and tumble them off.”

“That’s one way to end a fight,” she says, taking the mug he offers her.

“You’re not joining in the revelries, then? There’s much to celebrate.”

“I’ll do my celebrating when I’m home safe in the Shire, my feet up on my footstool,” she says. “And even then, I’ll not be doing anything that involve drinking games.”

Dwalin snorts into his mug. “Serves him right,” he mutters.

“What do you mean — serves who right?”

But Dwalin doesn’t answer. “Fíli did a fine job with your braids,” he says instead.

“It doesn’t look silly, or anything?” She has no idea why it matters.

Dwalin grins. “Truth to tell, lassie, you looked odder without them. Unbraided hair for a dwarf is an old-fashioned thing to do.”

“Fíli told me Balin does it because he lost his — I can’t remember the word,” Bilbo says.

“His âzyungâl, aye,” Dwalin says.

“Did you?” It’s a daring question to ask, even after all they’ve been through together, but she’s under the sky again, and she breathes easier here. “Is that why you don’t braid your hair?”

For a moment Bilbo doesn’t think he’s going to answer this, either; he takes a swig of his ale and looks out across the ruins of Dale, the cawing of crows the only sound. “Mine never loved me,” he says, at last. “But he’s alive, at least. Alive and strong.”

Bilbo blinks — though perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised. “Did you ever ask him?” she says.

“I might have, after this quest was ended,” Dwalin says. “But he’s since found his âzyungâl, and I’ll not get in the way of that.” And he claps her on the shoulder. “I hope you’ll not return to the Shire, lassie, for all that you’re still shit with the sword.”

“What — Dwalin, you can’t possibly mean—“ Bilbo starts, but Dwalin clears his throat loudly and turns toward the entryway.

“Good evening, Your Majesty,” he calls, and sure enough Thorin is coming up the stairs, looking very strange with a crown on his head.

“It seems I’m doomed to find the two of you up to one thing or another,” Thorin replies. 

“Blessed is a better term for it,” Dwalin says, and sketches a quick bow. “Bid you good evening, Your Majesty.”

“Do you think I could issue a decree forbidding him from doing that?” Thorin asks as Dwalin tromps away.

“You’re the king, I imagine you can do anything you wanted,” says Bilbo, distracted. This is far too much for her to take in all at once; she looks up at Thorin and wonders if he knows, but then the idea that Dwalin might have been talking about him finding his — whatever the word is — sends her head spinning in an entirely different direction. To save herself having to think any more, she takes another drink.

“I take it you did not understand much of what went on today,” Thorin says, standing far, far too close.

“Well, nobody will teach me khuzdul, so most of it went over my head,” she says, taking a careful step back.

“And such a fine head it is,” Thorin says, reaching out to touch the beads in her hair. “Do you like them?”

“They’re very pretty,” she squeaks, wondering what stance she’s in now — flourish, fight, or run.

“They suit you,” says Thorin, stepping closer. Any further retreat will send Bilbo over the edge of the balcony. “I told you before, we should talk.”

“Yes, there’s such a lot to talk about,” Bilbo says, “Because, you see, I’ll be leaving shortly, now that you’re all — fixed up,” she waves at him vaguely, “And it’s a long journey back home, so we should—“

“Home? You’re — leaving? You can’t,” Thorin says.

And this, at least, is familiar territory, Thorin Oakenshield trying to boss her about. She scowls. “Certainly I can. You’ve got your kingdom, I’ve got my share of the treasure—“

“Which you gave away, I hear,” Thorin interrupts.

“—And it’s high time I should go,” she continues.

Thorin seems incapable of speech for a moment, too busy fighting off a fit of apoplexy. “You — very well. I’ll make the necessary arrangements for your honor guard.”

“Oh, I — um. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Was — there anything _else_ you wanted to talk about?” Bilbo wants to bite the words back as soon as she says them, because what did she think would happen? That Thorin would protest his love for her, ask her to -- what? She can still remember his fading murmur, as he'd slipped into unconciousness and death: "I would have kept you," he'd said, but Bilbo knows better than to hold the words of a dying dwarf against a king. No — Dwalin was wrong, or he’d been talking about someone else. All this business with dragons and magic and heroic battles made her think for a moment she was living in a fairy story, but there are no happy endings to be found under this mountain.

“Nothing,” Thorin says. “It was nothing.”

*


	2. Chapter 2

The following week is fair-to-middlingly unbearable. Thorin disappears into his kinging duties; she hardly sees him outside of the occasional meal in the Great Hall or striding about with various advisors — Balin or Fíli usually leading the pack, Dwalin ever a hulking presence behind. The rest of the Company are cordial enough, but there’s an undercurrent amongst most of them, some reticence that Bilbo can’t quite understand. Bofur in particular, who’s always been the quickest with a laugh or a tale to tell, seems withdrawn; when he thinks she doesn’t notice he frowns at her, as though she were a riddle in a book.

But that’s nothing compared to the dwarves from the Iron Hills, come to settle in Erebor under the new King and who bow low to her whenever she comes across them in hallways. According to Fíli, Thorin named her some sort of nobility of Erebor in one of his many speeches during the coronation; the first outsider to be so honored in the Third Age. It’s an honor indeed, but it does make walking around a bit awkward.

It all combines to make the mountain into a stifling prison, and Bilbo exchanges coin for a shaggy pony named Bonnie and takes her out for rides along the lake’s edge, picking careful paths through the desolation and trying to reaccustom herself to the steady plod of horseback. It won’t be long before Bonnie is her only companion along the road home.

The only people who seem unaffected in any way are Fíli and Kíli, who have recovered from their wounds well enough to offer to spar with her in place of Dwalin, whose lessons have abruptly ceased since the coronation. “If you’re a match for two crippled half-dead spoiled princelings,” Kíli tells her, “You’ll no doubt be able to best any stray orcs you meet up with on the road.”

“Less talking, more footwork,” Fíli yells at them from the sidelines.

“I only have one foot that _works_!” Kíli replies.

“And if you want to keep that one you’ll do as I say!”

But even with his injury, Kíli runs her ragged — though it’s more enjoyable, since she’s fairly sure the princes aren’t going to decapitate her accidentally-on-purpose. 

“You’re fair quick, Miss Baggins,” Fíli observes, tossing his practice axe over Bilbo’s head. Kíli catches it and puts it on the rack. “I’m not surprised any longer how you lived through the quest.”

“Did you take bets on whether or not I would?” she asks, buckling Sting’s scabbard around her waist — at Dwalin’s insistence, she’s never to go out her chamber door without it now.

There’s a telling silence and when she looks up, Kíli is staring thoughtfully at the ceiling and Fíli is examining his throwing knife.

“Honestly, _dwarves_ ,” Bilbo sighs.

“Dwarves what?” Dwalin asks from the doorway, startling her.

“Nothing,” she says, trying to slow down her heartbeat.

“She found out about the dead pool,” Fíli says, because while she can glower at them all she wants and they’ll never admit to a thing, all Dwalin has to do is stomp into the room and they’re offering up misdeeds like so many gold pieces.

“Aye, I lost a good deal of money on you,” Dwalin tells her, sounding — she’s not quite sure. If it were anyone other than Dwalin she might call it _fond_. 

“Well, perhaps I’ll get myself eaten by wargs on the road home, and you can recoup your losses.”

She says it with a smile, but Dwalin’s not-quite-fond-scowl disappears into a real one. “Aye, perhaps. I’ve come to summon the princes,” he adds, turning away from Bilbo. “You’re wanted by the king. There’s a new arrival.”

“Another ambassador?” Kíli groans, sheathing his sword. “Surely we’ve met every dignitary under the sun by now.”

“This one’s a bit special, I’ll wager,” Dwalin says. “She’s all the way from Ered Luin, and has some particular business with the two of you.”

Dís is every bit as terrifying as her brother and an inch or two taller; her beard is worn short and unadorned, like Thorin’s once was, though her eyebrows are intricately braided with a thread of gold running through them. She shouts at length at Kíli and Fíli (who simply laugh and hug her around her neck all the more tightly) and turns to shout something at Thorin (who has managed to stay in the same room as Bilbo for the first time in a week and who is moreover _smiling_ ) when her attention is caught by Bilbo (who was dragged along protesting by Dwalin and deposited just inside the chambers before he abandoned her).

“Mother,” Fíli says, dragging Bilbo out of the doorway, “May I present Bilbo Baggins, daughter of Bungo Baggins, High Honored Good Thief of Erebor. Bilbo, this is Dís, daughter of Thrain, son of Thror, queen of Ered Luin and Erebor.”

“Not for long,” Dís tells her son, still watching Bilbo as though she’s putting on some sort of show. “So, this is the hobbit.”

Bilbo can’t help but glance at Thorin at that. He looks back at her, his eyes dancing, and all at once they are the burglar and the soldier again, plotting their way out of one mess and no doubt into another. “Bilbo Baggins, at your service, my lady,” she says, wobbling out a curtsey.

“I’m properly addressed as ‘Your Majesty,’” Dís tells her, “Though you ought to call me by name, Bilbo Baggins. I can ask no less of you.”

“I — would be glad to,” Bilbo says, feeling (not for the first time) completely at sea amongst the house of Durin.

“Would you,” Dís says. “I understand you have plans to leave us soon.”

“Not terribly soon,” Kíli interjects, slinging his arm across Bilbo’s shoulders. “She’s still rubbish at riding; you’ll need a good deal more practice.”

“How do you know I’m rubbish?” Bilbo turns her glare on Thorin. “Have you been _spying_ on me?”

“The guards at the watchtower have reported a rider and pony stumbling along the shoreline every morning; the rider swears a good deal and occasionally falls off,” Thorin replies. “If I wanted to spy, I would not have to try very hard.”

So of course she has to press her luck, because she’s above all things her mother’s only child. “I should offer you more of a challenge, is that what you’re saying?”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” says Thorin very seriously.

“And I would prefer if we had this conversation over dinner, for I’ve been on the road for six weeks with naught but stale bread and dried meat to sustain me,” Dís announces. “Come, Bilbo Baggins, we have much to talk about.”

“We do?” Bilbo says, as Kíli squeezes her shoulder and hauls her out into the corridor.

*

Dís is not the only new arrival; she’s brought with her hundreds of dwarves from the Blue Mountains, blacksmiths and tinkers and merchants who seem as uncomfortable as Bilbo is under the weight of the Lonely Mountain. They give Bilbo strange looks, though they’ve also apparently gotten the message about bowing to her whenever she runs into them.

“You are uneasy with their obeisance,” Dís observes. The two of them are in a huge, echoing cavern called the Queen’s Hall. Hundreds of years ago the everyday business of the mountain was conducted here — supervising the mines, tallying the foodstuffs, handling trade — business that Bilbo has been helping with ever since Thorin woke up.

Bilbo takes a moment to work out what “obeisance” means. “I suppose I’m more used to the Company,” she says. “They referred to me almost exclusively as ‘the extra baggage’ for months. Getting respect from dwarves is a bit startling after that.”

“My brother has always set terrible precedents,” Dís says. “I don’t blame you in the least for leaving him.”

“I’m leaving everyone,” Bilbo amends, though it doesn’t feel quite right. The past few days since Dís’s arrival, have been as close to normal as Bilbo’s dared compare; Thorin’s talking to her again, and Dwalin pounds her into the ground once a day during what he laughably calls “training.” She isn’t just leaving Thorin, but it still feels something like treason.

“That, I do blame you for,” Dís says. “Abandoning me and my sons, not to mention your comrades in arms — it seems quite heartless after all you’ve done for us.”

Bilbo’s learned enough about Dís to smile at that. “So the expectation after someone does a dwarf great service is, what? That they continue to serve?”

“Of course,” Dís replies, making a great show of being surprised as another dwarf comes forward with a request. “How is it done amongst hobbits?”

Bilbo opens her mouth to say, _we serve each other in turn_ , but shuts it again, because that doesn’t seem quite right either. “I don’t recall,” she says instead.

*

Despite the various lamentations and reproaches, her departure never seems to loom any closer than on the horizon; it’s early spring, new grass blushing along the grey flanks of the mountain and the old blackened trees sprouting tender leaves, when Dáin Ironfoot comes to pay tribute, and Bilbo is still there to hear the horns sounding his welcome. She hurries along the corridors, dodging bowing dwarves, until she almost runs into Fíli fussing with his coronet and wearing an eye-searingly purple robe that is apparently the mark of the royal heir to Erebor’s throne. Bilbo’s only ever seen him put it on when foreign dignitaries have come to court. “It’s only Dáin,” she points out.

“All the more reason,” Fíli sighs. “Uncle doesn’t like him.”

“How can anyone not like _Dáin_?”

Kíli, who’s close behind his brother, snorts, his own coronet crooked on his head.

“Where is the paragon of lovliness to grace these ugly eyes?” Dáin thunders, dismounting in the courtyard, his voice echoing. “I’ve journeyed long with naught but memories of her face to spur me onwards.”

Bilbo laughs at Thorin’s constipated scowl as she comes forward. “I’m glad to prove such an inspiration, my lord,” she says to his beaming face.

“Little lass, you’ve grown more beautiful, though sadly no stouter. Is my good cousin feeding you at all, or have you been forced to wander his halls begging for scraps? I’d think he’d treat you better — if you’d but come to my halls, I’d keep you fat and happy as long as you lived.”

From behind her there’s a scandalized murmur. Bilbo ignores it; Dáin reminds her, indelibly, of her cousin Aldagrim, who inherited every drop of their grandfather Took’s twinkling charm and none of his seriousness. “A generous offer to be sure, my lord,” she replies, and lets him kiss her hand. The murmurs get louder.

“Aye, but you’ve been made a better one, I see,” Dáin says mournfully. “I’ll dress myself in rags and mourning-stones, my lady, and wear my beard unbraided from here henceforth.”

“A better one—“ Bilbo frowns, but Dáin’s already gone to greet Dís and Thorin, bellowing paeans to Dís’s beauty and dulcet tones while Thorin grumbles his greetings.

“Not a _much_ better one,” Fíli says, coming up behind her.

“This family is _utterly impossible,_ ” Bilbo huffs.

But it’s Dáin, with his grand gestures and broad flirtations, who finally spells out what everyone else has apparently been telling her all this while. 

“I’ve been told a scandalous falsehood, my lovely comrade and comfort,” he tells her at dinner that night, the Company arrayed at the high table, Bilbo bumping shoulders with Kíli and Dís. Dáin sits across from her, frowning at her over a mug of ale. “Fíli has tried to convince me you’ll soon be leaving the Lonely Mountain and traveling back to the kindly West.”

The table grows quiet; Bilbo looks up from her plate to see almost every dwarf’s eye on her. “It’s true,” she says, trying to understand why everyone’s looking so serious all of a sudden when just a moment ago they were recounting the ten most embarrassing times Bombur’s passed wind in the midst of a ceremony. “Although I haven’t set a date for departure yet.”

“I’d hope not,” Dáin says, slamming his mug down. “After all, Thorin’s not even told me when the wedding is, and you can hardly leave before then!” He says it with a laugh, which no one else joins in on.

Bilbo stares at Dáin, then at Thorin. “Wedding,” she repeats.

“Mind you,” Dáin continues, “I don’t hold with long-distance marriages. Can you not convince him to go with you? Fíli’d make a perfectly acceptable king — I’m sure he’d drive a less flint-hearted bargain in trade than my honored cousin, that’s sure as death.”

“Take him with me,” Bilbo tries, still staring. Thorin, for his part, hasn’t met anyone’s eyes during this entire conversation.

“He could make himself very useful, I’m sure of it,” Dáin says comfortably.

“Oh, I’m sure of it, as well. If you will excuse me,” Bilbo says, getting to her feet, “I’d like to request a private audience with Your Highness, _if you’d please_.” 

At long last Thorin looks up, blanching. “Dinner’s not over,” he says, sounding like nothing so much as a tween who’s just been caught scrumping.

“We’ll save you some dessert,” Dís says, elbowing her brother out of his seat.

*

Thorin follows her out of the hall, through the corridors, past more confusticated bowing dwarves, up the stairs and into his chambers without a word; Bilbo’s too angry to appreciate it, and the moment the door’s closed she whirls on him. “ _Wedding_?” she hisses.

“I’ve been meaning to speak with you about that,” Thorin says.

“Oh, have you indeed? Has it just slipped your mind any of the dozen times we’ve been alone together over the past month? Or did Óin somehow miss a great blow to your _head_ in addition to the other injuries you’ve suffered?”

“You told me you were leaving not an hour after I proclaimed you my intended in front of every dwarf in Erebor!” he retorted, pacing up and down the carpet. “Forgive me for my confusion, _burglar_ , but it seemed a poor time to start planning nuptials!” 

“When did you proclaim me anything — merciful heavens, is that what you were waving at me for during the coronation?”

“Of course it was, what did you think?”

“Thorin Oakenshield, you enormous clothead under the mountain,” she says, disbelieving. “Have we been _engaged_ this entire time?”

That seems to bring Thorin up short. “You — didn’t know?”

Bilbo tries very hard not to beat him over the head with a chair. “Of course I didn’t know! You never proposed!”

“I never— I _did_ propose, and you accepted!”

Her jaw drops. “I think I would have remembered that,” is the best she can manage around the outraged squeal she wants to set loose. “When on earth was this supposed conversation?”

“We never had a _conversation_ ,” Thorin says, sounding as scandalized as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins had that time Bilbo had stubbed her toe and sworn an oath in front of her. “But you accepted — you’re still wearing—“ Thorin gestures at her hair.

She pats at it for a moment, baffled, before feeling the beads along one side behind her ear. “My beads?”

“ _My_ beads,” growls Thorin, stepping close, as close as he’d been that night on the balcony. “From stone and silver hewn by my own hands. Even you could not have misunderstood their meaning.”

“Well, obviously I _did_ misunderstand their meaning,” she snaps back, standing her ground this time. He’s always used his great hulk against her, looming whenever he wanted to bully her around to his way of thinking, but Dwalin’s taught her too many tricks by now; she’ll kick his bad knee before she’ll give way again.

“Obviously,” he says, but he seems to lose momentum now, as lost as he’d been at the hidden door, the key dropping from nerveless fingers. “Then you… are simply going to leave me.”

 _Alone_ hangs in the air between them, and for the first time she realizes what she’s almost done.

Bilbo was an only child, playing games by herself in the shade of the Party Tree, the chief mourner at her parents’ funeral and tending to Bag End with no one else to help or hinder her. She lived the whole of her life in one kind of solitude until Gandalf came calling, and if she goes home now she’ll live out the end of her days in another kind. That was what felt wrong before — she would not be leaving Thorin. _She_ would be the one left.

Carefully, her heart pounding a frightening beat in her throat, she reaches up to touch the crowsfeet at the corner of his eye, brushing her thumb along the ridge of his cheek.

“I didn’t know I couldn’t,” she admits.

“Well, you know now,” he grumbles, pressing a kiss to the palm of her hand. It feels like fire and ice warring in her veins, and she takes a few moments to actually understand what he said; when she does, she glares and yanks hard on the short braid in his beard.

“No, I most certainly do not,” she says, “Because as far as I’m concerned, you’ve been a complete boffin about this entire thing and it would serve you right if I _did_ leave.”

“But you won’t,” he says, not even wincing, blast him. Instead he curls his hand around hers and presses another kiss to her palm. “Will you?”

“I don’t know,” she says, trying to sound peevish but probably failing, if the way Thorin’s smiling is any indication, “What are you asking me this time?”

“Is that how hobbits do it, then? Just — _ask_?”

“Yes of _course_ that’s how we do it. Well,” she amends, “First there’s usually sex, but—“

“I’ve no objection to that,” Thorin says, catching her other hand and bringing it up to his lips. “Honoring your traditions is extremely important to me.”

“Yes, I’m sure it is,” she laughs, and pulls his irritating, infuriating, impossible face down to hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to screamlet for her flawless beta skills - any remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> Feedback is, as always, very welcome.


End file.
